Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Sorry Nigella, I've lost my appetite

This Thursday is the biggest day of the year for publishers as the best-selling authors in Britain, J. K. Rowling and Jamie Oliver, launch their latest books. With a barrage of expensive publicity, this is a heavily hyped contest designed to extract millions of pounds from a public with less cash to spend on luxuries.

Nigella Lawson, who has come up with a recipe for pizza which uses meatballs as the base

Both pricey volumes are already heavily discounted to seduce us — online, Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals is slashed from £26 to £13, and Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, from £20 to £9.86, though you’ll have to pay extra for postage.

I will be buying Rowling’s book out of curiosity, to see if her observations of life in a small town are as spot on as her gift for weaving spells.

JK Rowling and Nigel Slater are both releasing new books this week

More importantly, I don’t need another jumbo cookery book filled with pictures of food porn. Surely, we’ve bought enough of these already. I must own at least 20. What more can there be left to say about whipping up a quick plate of pasta or cooking a chop? These lavish cookery books suddenly seem as redundant as a monster handbag, now deemed passé by the fashion police in the age of the iPad-sized clutch. Yet publishers are still churning them out in all their bloated glory — we’ve just seen the battle of the male and female Nigels, Slater vs Lawson, whose books were offered at £30 (cut to £20) and £26 (reduced to £13).I used to love Nigel Slater; sadly, now I think he’s having a laugh at my expense.Are we British so stupid that we need to pay £30 to find out how to make tomato and basil bruschetta (ingredients: tomatoes, bread, basil, olive oil and artichokes), which starts with the order: ‘Get an overhead grill hot’? Surely not.